Colter woke with a start in an unfamiliar hospital bed. The beeping of the heart monitor next to him accelerated as the past few hours came back to him. “Kensie!”
“She’s okay,” a nurse reassured him.
Colter took a few deep breaths, getting his heart rate under control. This had happened several times already.
The helicopter he’d spotted from the mountain was a police chopper, sent out after his text to 911 had gone through. It hadn’t been able to set down for them on the wooded mountainside, so Colter had forced himself up. Beside him, Kensie had managed to do the same with Rebel pressed against her side. Together, the three of them had limped as far as they could, until finally a rescue team met them.
Now they were here, getting checked out. As hard as he’d tried to stay awake, Colter kept drifting off to sleep.
Beside him, Rebel pushed wearily to her feet and the nurse gave his dog a stern look.
“She shouldn’t be here.” The nurse repeated the same thing she said every time he woke.
“She’s my service dog.”
The nurse grunted, clearly not believing him. But hospital administration had—or, at least, that’s what he’d assumed, until a doctor had winked at him then bent down and checked Rebel’s leg, too. The doc had said his wife was military and he knew a soldier dog when he saw one.
Rebel seemed to like that and let the doctor examine her. He’d put ointment and gauze over each of her paws and then gently wrapped her leg. Thankfully, she hadn’t torn anything, just aggravated the old injury. It just needed time, the doctor told him. Much like Colter’s own leg.
They’d stripped off his wet clothes and soaked his hands, feet and nose—which all had minor frostbite—in warm water. Now his hands and feet were bare, wrapped in gauze, and he was in a hospital gown.
He knew Kensie had also suffered from frostbite, that she’d been experiencing hypothermia. But they’d assured him she would survive, then rushed her off to surgery to remove the bullet from her leg. That was the last he’d seen her.
Colter glanced at the clock on the wall, trying to remember what time they’d arrived. “What’s taking so long?” he asked the nurse.
“We’re making sure we address everything,” she replied, a little more patiently than she’d responded to Rebel’s presence. “She’ll be okay.” Then she glanced over at the door. “You’ve got visitors.”
His gaze shot up. Rebel’s did, too, surely expecting the same thing he did. To see Kensie standing there, smiling tiredly. Instead, he discovered a pair of police officers.
He didn’t know either of them. They were wearing uniforms from a town northeast of Desparre, closer to where the helicopter had found him, Kensie and Rebel.
The pair stepped into his room, both serious cops who looked like they’d been on the force a long time. The nurse left, closing the door behind her, and Colter’s heart pounded. “Did you find them?”
When the rescue team had arrived, Kensie’s first words had been about her sister. She’d been frantic and desperate, barely making sense, so Colter had filled in as best he could with aching lungs and a body that wanted to just lie down and sleep.
He’d been asking for updates every time he woke, but no one seemed to know anything.
“We sent a tactical team out to the cabin,” one of the officers replied. “It was partially cleared out. We’re tracking the Altiers now. We’ve talked to the nearest neighbors—a couple of miles away—and learned it’s a family of seven. The parents and five children. The neighbor confirmed the oldest girl is named Alanna.”
The news sent a shock through Colter, even though Kensie’s reaction when she’d seen the girl had already told him it was her.
“Our team is still searching. We’ll let you know as soon as we find them.”
The officer spoke with confidence, as if locating the Altier family was a foregone conclusion, but Colter’s shoulders slumped. They’d managed to keep Alanna hidden for so long. What if they got away again? How would Kensie survive coming so close, only to lose her sister once more?
Colter’s heart ached for her. He’d do anything he could to help her, assuming she wanted his help. But in all the time since they’d arrived, while he was worrying about how she was faring, he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about one other thing.
When they’d gotten to safety, she hadn’t repeated her words from the mountain. She hadn’t repeated that she loved him.
He wanted to say the words back to her anyway. But should he? Or should he give her a clean break, let her focus on her family, on trying to make it whole again?
A shriek outside his door jolted him out of his thoughts and he realized the officers had left. Rebel jumped up at the sound, recognizing the voice, even though it didn’t sound quite normal. Kensie.
Together, they moved as quickly as they could to the door and Colter flung it open, ready to handle whatever threat faced her. Instead, he saw a different pair of officers walking down the hall, Alanna between them.
Kensie was in the hallway, too, in a hospital gown, her leg wrapped up. She limped awkwardly toward the trio, not even noticing him as she breathed, “Alanna?”
“Kensie!” the girl replied, racing toward her sister and wrapping her in a hug.
AFTER FOURTEEN LONG YEARS, Kensie was finally hugging her sister again.
It didn’t feel real. The last time she’d wrapped her arms around Alanna, she’d had to bend down to reach the five-year-old. She’d buried her head in her sister’s unruly curls, breathed in that little-kid scent of sugar and dirt that she still smelled whenever she thought of Alanna.
Now her sister was nineteen and only two inches shorter than Kensie. Her hair was thick and straight, cut in a blunt line at her shoulders, highlighting the elegant lines of her face.
Kensie pulled back, holding Alanna at arm’s length to get a good look at her.
“We still look like sisters,” Alanna whispered.
Her voice was different, too, and yet a hint of the five-year-old was still there. Tears filled Kensie’s eyes and she swiped them away, not wanting to miss a single detail of her sister’s face, all grown up.
They did look like sisters. Kensie’s hair was longer, but if they twined strands together, Kensie doubted they’d be able to tell whose was whose. Alanna’s eyes were a darker brown, closer to Flynn’s than Kensie’s, but she and her sister had the same long eyelashes, the same strong eyebrows. People would have known they were family at a single glance.
What would it have been like to grow up with Alanna? With eight years between them, they never would have been in school together, but Kensie would have wanted to be her protector. Just like she had when she was thirteen.
“I’m so sorry,” Kensie whispered back, remembering that moment in their front yard, the defining moment in her life. When she’d read a book while Alanna had run around the yard, too close to the street. When a car had sped up to their curb, slammed to a stop, and the man inside it yanked Alanna away from them.
Alanna took her hands. “It’s not your fault.”
Kensie burst into tears. It hurt her lungs and her face, which she’d only started to feel again in the past hour. Wiping her tears away with her arm so she could keep hold of her sister’s hands, Kensie gave a shaking smile. “I’ve missed you so much.”
From the corner of her eye, she spotted Colter and Rebel, standing in the doorway of a hospital room. They were sliding quietly backward, obviously trying to let her and Alanna have a private reunion.
But there’d have been no reunion at all if it weren’t for the two of them. Keeping her right hand gripped in Alanna’s, she turned her head and held out her left for Colter.
He seemed a little unsure, but Rebel limped over immediately, pushing her way in between Kensie and Alanna and making Alanna laugh.
Kensie’s heart felt so full at the sound. As her sister petted Rebel, Kensie stretched her hand out farther, silently imploring Colter.
When he stepped carefully toward her on bandaged feet and placed his hand in hers, she squeezed tight. She never wanted to let go of any of them, ever again.
She wasn’t sure how long they stood there, in the hospital hallway, huddled together and smiling at each other, until Alanna suggested, “Let’s sit.”
The pain in her leg had actually been forgotten, seeing Alanna safe, but now it returned in a wave of agony. She wasn’t supposed to be standing on it yet, let alone walking.
They must have been quite a sight, limping into her hospital room. Once she was seated, Colter beside her, Alanna on the empty bed across from them and Rebel on the ground between them, Kensie asked, “What happened all these years, Alanna?”
As soon as the words were out, she wanted to call them back. What if her sister had been terribly abused? What if it hurt her too much to talk about it? Was Kensie prepared to hear what Alanna had endured?
Colter’s fingers slid through hers, squeezing gently, lending her strength, and Kensie tried to stay strong for Alanna.
But her sister shook her head. “It’s not what you’re thinking. They were...good to me.”
“Good to you? They kidnapped you, Alanna! They stole you from us for fourteen years!”
“I know. And all that time, I tried so hard not to forget you and Flynn, and Mom and Dad. I tried so hard to protect my memories. It wasn’t easy. I was five. But I still have good memories. I was one of the lucky ones.”
“What do you mean?”
“You saw them, right? At the cabin?”
The other kids. Kensie had assumed they were the Altiers’s own children, that only Alanna had been abducted. Realization made the blood seem to drain from her body. “They were all kidnapped?”
“Yeah. The younger two don’t remember their birth families at all. Sydney—she’s twelve—remembers best. She was the oldest when they took her and I guess they learned from that, because they started picking younger kids. Johnny—my older brother—he was five, like me. He barely remembers his birth family. It’s why they’ve been able to mold him so much. It’s why he shot at you. To protect the family.”
Kensie swallowed back her instant response. Johnny wasn’t her older brother. Flynn was her older brother. And she and Flynn and their parents weren’t Alanna’s birth family. They were simply her family.
Colter pulled her hand into his lap, stroking her palm gently, like he could read her mind. Across from them, Alanna sighed.
“I guess it’s hard to understand,” she said. “But I lived with the Altiers for fourteen years, most of my life. They picked kids who looked like them. They wanted a family and couldn’t have one, so they kidnapped kids. They treated us well, never hurt any of us. They wanted us to be happy, but the way we lived—it was like kids probably did a long time ago. We worked hard, all of us. We lived off the land. We were all homeschooled. And we moved around. A lot. Especially at the beginning. Until eventually we came here. I guess they felt Alaska was safe, because we built the cabin. We finally stayed in one place.”
“You were happy?” The question was hard to get out, because she hoped her sister would say yes, but some part of her felt like it was wrong for Alanna to have been happy with her kidnappers.
Alanna’s gaze dropped to her lap and she fiddled with a worn gold and garnet ring on her right hand. It looked like an antique, something that would get passed down in families. But it hadn’t come from the Morgans.
“Mostly.” She met Kensie’s gaze again, her eyes imploring Kensie to understand. “I never forgot you, Kensie. I never forgot any of you. I wanted to come home. I tried not to let them know, but I always wanted to come home.”
“And at that store, you finally had a chance to write a note without being seen?” Kensie asked, trying to contain her emotions. There were so many. Happiness at having Alanna back, regret at missing most of her childhood, anger that the people who’d stolen her had pretended they were her family, relief that Alanna hadn’t been hurt or abused.
Alanna bit her lip. “Sort of. I—”
When Alanna looked like she might cry, Kensie assured her, “It’s okay. Whatever it is, you can tell me. We’re sisters.”
Alanna smiled. It trembled on her lips, her eyes still watery, but it was fueled by happiness. Kensie knew because it looked just like her own smile.
Happiness burst inside of her at sharing that with her sister. In that moment, she knew whatever Alanna had been through, whatever Alanna needed to help her move forward, they could do it together. They could rebuild their family. Finally.
“I had chances before. I was allowed to go places. I mean, they watched me, but they trusted me, too, once I’d been with them for a while. It’s just that...”
“What?” Kensie whispered.
“I love them.”
The words made Kensie’s chest hurt, made her whole body tense up. But she tried not to show it.
“I’m sorry,” Alanna said. “I know that has to be hard to hear. But they raised me. I knew they’d kidnapped me, but they treated me well. They took care of me and over the years, I just—”
“It’s okay,” Kensie assured her. It was hard to hear, but she understood. And although she didn’t want to owe the Altiers anything, she was grateful they’d given Alanna a good childhood.
“But last month, Johnny started talking about wanting to get married. He’d met this girl and he was so excited about adding to our family and I just... I realized if I didn’t try, I’d never get any milestones like that with you, Flynn, Mom or Dad.”
“Were they mad when they learned what you’d done?” Kensie asked, not wanting to think about what the rest of her life might have been like if Alanna hadn’t taken that risk.
“Yeah. They thought we’d lucked out when the FBI called it a hoax, but then they said you’d come to town. They were talking about leaving. I convinced them to let me go into town, to just see it one more time. It was the only place I’d lived for more than a year—except back in Illinois with you. Da—Mr. Altier took me into town late at night, figuring not many people would be around.”
The day she’d followed Henry. He must have gone the other way, down the alley and back toward town, instead of into the storage units, like she’d thought. But without knowing it, he’d led her right to Alanna.
Alanna burst into tears. “When that man attacked you in the parking lot, I thought I’d gotten you killed.”
Kensie shoved to her feet, her leg screaming as she put weight on it, and folded her sister into a hug. Hopefully just one of many, many hugs to come. “No. You saved me. You and Colter and Rebel. You saved me.”
“Alanna Altier?”
Kensie’s head swiveled at the question and she saw a doctor waiting in the doorway. She wanted to correct him about her sister’s name, but kept quiet. There would be time for that. Right now was a time to reunite.
“I need you to come with me so we can make sure you’re okay.”
“I’m fine,” Alanna said, her arms still looped loosely around Kensie.
“I’m sure you are, but this won’t take long,” the doctor insisted.
Alanna looked at Kensie and she nodded. “I’ll be waiting for you,” Kensie promised.
As the doctor led her sister into another room, Kensie sank onto the bed Alanna had just vacated, staring at Colter as disbelief and joy mingled. “I can’t believe any of this is real. I can’t believe we found her.”
Colter smiled back at her, the sight of it already so familiar and comforting. “Believe it,” he told her. “This is your new normal.”
“I’ve got to call my family,” Kensie said, even as her mind screamed that she wanted him to be part of her new normal, too.
“I can go,” Colter said, standing. “Let you call them.”
“No.” Kensie reached out for him and he let her pull him closer. Her heart beat a frantic, frightened tempo as she stared into his eyes, wanting him to see the truth of her words as she spoke them.
Obviously sensing something important was happening, Rebel scooted closer, pressing against Colter’s side.
“I meant what I said on the mountain,” Kensie blurted before she could lose her nerve. “I know it’s fast and I know it’s not what you were looking for, but I can’t help it. I love you.”
She had to tell him. He’d done so much for her. He’d lost so much in the past year. Even if he couldn’t love her back, she wanted him to know that he was worthy of someone giving him everything they had.
She expected his face to twist with regret and discomfort, but instead he smiled. It started out slow and sexy, putting crinkles beside his eyes. Then it burst wide and Kensie’s heart seemed to do the same.
“I love you, too, Kensie.”